1 (edited by tonycstech 2019-04-05 06:32:09)

Topic: Need better stepper motor controller

I have 2 generic controllers with no name so i dont know what they are.
i also tried 4-Layer Substrate MKS LV8729 and 3D MKS TMC2208
Ordered DRV8825 to try.

Same problem for all. Overheating and loosing steps.
If i dial the potentiometer down, motor will skip due to low torque.
If i dial it up enough to make it work properly, controller gets hot and starts to skip steps. Motor also gets got and starts to skip on top of that as well.

I ordered E3D stepper motor 26mm and installed Titan extruder for which that motor was intended but same problem.
Its just not powerful enough to get print anywhere faster then 50mm/s

I dont want to install water cooler to cool the controller nor do i want to start worrying about cooling the darn motor its self.

Are you telling me that 42mm standard stepper motor is the only way to go ?
I am sick of wasting money for "best" E3D parts that do not perform. They were no different then Chinese aftermarket.

Thanks !
http://www.soliforum.com/misc.php?action=pun_attachment&item=11135&download=0

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2 (edited by carl_m1968 2019-04-05 11:42:38)

Re: Need better stepper motor controller

You should have a good fan blowing on your controller. Machines that do not include a board fan are just a poor design. All the newer drivers need a fan even if they do have heatsinks and most manuals or instructions for installing them will even tell you this. My Bigfoot BSD2660's needed a fan blowing across them as do the Trinamic TNC2208 driver I have coming soon for my Anycubic 4Max.

As far as your printing speed maybe the motor is nit your problem but the inability to heat the filament enough. Maybe your power supply is not able to keep up with heating demand. Maybe you need a higher wattage heater. Filament acts like a heat sink and it sucks enormous amounts of heat from the hotend and the faster you feed the more it sucks away. you also have to raise your temp higher than normal for higher than normal speeds which is typically 40mm/s.

50mm/s is considered fast and anything above that is pushing most machines unless they are designed for fast printing which is usually a machine that is going to set you back $2000 out of the box. Theses machines like the Enders that claim 60mm/s + may do it but there will be tons of artifacts in the print and there we be issues with maintaining heat on long prints. Most of the time when you see these statements it was done by laying one stripe down at the max speed the machine could do and then using fuzzy averaging.. It was not done on a full print.

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

3

Re: Need better stepper motor controller

if the motors are getting hot, they most likely have too much voltage going to them. lukewarm is ok, hot is not
there is a very fine line between too much voltage and not enough. the trick is to find that line.

a fan over the controller board should be a no-brainer, really. it is a very simple solution to a very common problem.

now.. I am running a mostly stock Folgertech FT-5 (hot-end has been upgraded) on a stock MKS Gen1.4 controller board and running at 120mm/s print speed. The FT-5 costs $500 and is a kit printer.

to run that fast I do have to turn the temp up a bit. For PLA, I am running temps of 225C in order to melt & feed it fast enough to produce a decent looking print.

the striping you see in this picture is actual color variance in the material itself.. the color was obviously not mixed well enough before production of the filament... That aside, the print itself is fine and took 3hrs, 40mins on the FT-5... same print on my best SD4 would take about 10 & a half hours at 40mm/s...

http://soliforum.com/i/?ZZhsEyA.jpg

SD4 #1 & #2 - Lawsy carriages, E3D v6, Rumba controller board, mirror bed plate, X motor fan, upgraded PSU & Mica bed heater
SD4 #3 - in the works ~ Folgertech FT-5, rev 1
Printit Industries Beta Tester - Horizon H1

4

Re: Need better stepper motor controller

Power supply has plenty of power.
Nozzle is at 240 for PLA.
The only solution i see is to use 42mm motor. It will work and it will not get hot and it will not need any reduction gears such as titan.
Issue is the same on 2 different printers. One cheap chinese FlyingBear Ghost and another is old Robo3d.
Titan motors just dont work for direct drive system unless you either print very slow or filament spool provides no resistance at all.

I thought to my self OMG i can make a smaller carriage with smaller motor YAY !!!! but then i had to add thick ass extruder with reducing gears in it and that make no difference in dimensions at the end.
The only benefit was, weight loss. Since then, i've had nothing but trouble and failed prints. And on top of that few burned down controllers because swapping motors requires swapping wires also and i dont always remember which of the many motors need it when i swap them angry at how much money i paid and how much they failed to deliver what advertised.

For my printer, E3D motor for titan extruder did not work. No matter what voltage i set, motor either too weak to pull or gets too hot and fails to pull. Either way it failed and i cant even get my money back.

Trusted E3D store product VS chinese on ebay, but it turned out to be same thing, just X2 the price and no return policy.

5

Re: Need better stepper motor controller

So you are not really looking for help, you just dropped in to publicly trash E3D?

Printing since 2009 and still love it!
Anycubic 4MAX best $225 ever invested.
Voxelabs Proxima SLA. 6 inch 2k Mono LCD.
Anycubic Predator, massive Delta machine. 450 x 370 print envelope.

6 (edited by Tin Falcon 2019-04-06 00:27:15)

Re: Need better stepper motor controller

this may be a silly question but did you change the step /mm when installing the titan and  did you recalibrate the extruder.

IMHO something is not right  I have  a titan on one machine and an aero with titan on another and have had no similar issues.


The titan has a 3:1 gear reduction so the motor should have plenty of torque.

Soliddoodle 4 stock w glass bed------Folger Tech Prusa 2020 upgraded to and titan /aero extruder mirror bed
FT5 with titan/ E3D Aero------MP mini select w glass bed
MP Utimate maker pro-W bondtech extruder
Marlin/Repetier Host/ Slic3r and Cura

7

Re: Need better stepper motor controller

carl_m1968 wrote:

So you are not really looking for help, you just dropped in to publicly trash E3D?

I asked for  " Need better stepper motor controller", not how to troubleshoot.
With that said, you are not really looking to help, you just mock me for sharing my negative experience ?

8

Re: Need better stepper motor controller

Tin Falcon wrote:

this may be a silly question but did you change the step /mm when installing the titan and  did you recalibrate the extruder.
IMHO something is not right  I have  a titan on one machine and an aero with titan on another and have had no similar issues.
The titan has a 3:1 gear reduction so the motor should have plenty of torque.

Correct. Silly question.

I was hoping to gain torque from 1/3 reduction and i did but it still wasn't enough.


What i learned from 4 different stepper controllers and from at least 8 of them burned down due to swapping motors that have different polarity and no identification markings (had to use multimeter to figure it out) is that not all controllers are equal.

2 unbranded in particular were interesting.
1 would have  very little effect on torque while adjusting the potentiometer. It would only make the motor hot without gaining much torque  and THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR with this particular controller is that the controller its self DOES NOT GET HOT at all, not even warm.
This controller came from Robo3D printer. I have no clue how to identify it and i dont really need to, it does not help the situation anyway.

Another would have very noticale effect on torque with the slightest turn of potentiometer. Hair of a turn one way and motor stall weak, hair of turn another way and motor pulls but controller and motor overheat.
Bad potentiometer you may say ? Sounds like it but i have a number of those controllers and some of them are  new yet they all act the same.

9

Re: Need better stepper motor controller

carl_m1968 wrote:

You should have a good fan blowing on your controller. Machines that do not include a board fan are just a poor design..

I disagree. My old ROBO3D R1 has fan wired to BED heater so it will turn on ONLY when bed is heating up because there are two capacitors that get hot and cause problems if the get hot enough, and it only hapens during bed heating while i print ABS.

99.9% i print PLA so bed is OFF and so is the board cooling fan, yet i have never seen such behavior.
How ever, that printer comes with 42x42mm stepper motors and it is directly drives the filement without any reduction gears such as Greg Wades or what ever extruder it originally came with, i quickly redesigned it to compact system.
This is Robo3D extruder i designed
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:550788

This is the one i am having trouble with
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3541982